NASA’s Orion Spacecraft Splashes Down Successfully To Complete Artemis I Mission

NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, west of Baja California, at 9:40 a.m. PST on 11 December 2022. The spacecraft, which is built to return humans to the moon, arrived back on Earth after its record-breaking mission. During which it traveled more than 1.4 million miles on a path around the Moon and returning safely to Earth. Splashdown is the final milestone of the Artemis I mission that began with a successful liftoff of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket from the Kennedy Space Center on 16 November. Over the course of 25.5 days, NASA tested Orion in the harsh environment of deep space before flying astronauts on Artemis II. “The splashdown of the Orion spacecraft – which occurred 50 years to the day of the Apollo 17 Moon landing – is the crowning achievement of Artemis I,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “This flight test is a major step forward in the Artemis Generation of lunar exploration” During the mission, Orion performed two lunar flybys, coming within 80 miles of the lunar surface. At its farthest distance during the mission, Orion traveled nearly 270,000 miles from our home planet more than 1,000 times farther than where the International Space Station orbits Earth, to intentionally stress systems before flying crew. Orion will return to shore where technicians will offload the spacecraft and transfer it by truck back to Kennedy. Then teams will open the hatch and unload several payloads, including a test mannequin, the space biology experiments, Snoopy, and the official flight kit. Through?Artemis?missions, NASA will land the first woman and the first person of colour on the surface of the Moon paving the way for a long-term lunar presence and missions to Mars.

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